About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Friday, August 19, 2016

S.Sudanese opposition leader Machar fled to Congo

South Sudan's former vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar
"is in the care" of the authorities in the neighbouring Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations has said, several weeks
after he withdrew from the capital Juba during fierce fighting with government troops.
The news on Thursday came after a statement by the leadership of the
SPLA In Opposition party said Machar had left South Sudan on Wednesday
to a "safe country within the region", without giving any further
details on his exact whereabouts.
"We were aware yesterday of the presence of Riek Machar in DRC," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said on Thursday.
Machar led a two-year rebellion against forces loyal to his longtime rival President Salva Kiir before the two sides reached a peace deal in August 2015. Under the deal, Machar returned to Juba in April to resume his role as vice president.
But fighting flared last month, leading Machar to withdraw with his forces from Juba around mid-July.
Since the outbreak of fighting in July, Kiir has sacked Machar from
his post and appointed Taban Deng Gai, a former opposition negotiator
who broke ranks with Machar, as vice president.
The UN told Kiir that any political changes must be consistent with
the peace deal, which stated that the vice president must be chosen by
the South Sudan Armed Opposition.
Last week, the UN Security Council approved the deployment of an
additional 4,000-strong peacekeeping force in South Sudan, after the
July infighting threatened to send the country back to all-out civil
war.South Sudan initially rejected the resolution, claiming it "seriously undermines" its sovereignty, but
South Sudan's President Kiir told Al Jazeera on Sunday that it had not yet closed the door on a UN protection force. Ateny Wek Ateny, the presidential spokesman, said the government will
accept the force, but only if it can negotiate its size, mandate,
weapons and the contributing countries.
The civil war in South Sudan began in December 2013 when government
forces loyal to President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by
Machar, a Nuer.Tens of thousands of people were killed in the fighting and more than two million people were displaced.